A BART car and a shovel were brought to the ground breaking ceremonies for the BART-to-San Jose extension near the future Berryessa station in San Jose, Calif. on Thursday, April 12, 2012. The 16-mile, $3.2 billion BART line from Fremont to East San Jose will be the biggest public works project ever in Silicon Valley. (Gary Reyes/ Staff)

Carl Guardino, head of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, tosses a shovel full of rocks along with other dignitaries during the ground breaking for the BART-to-San Jose extension in San Jose, Calif. on Thursday, April 12, 2012. The 16-mile, $3.2 billion BART line from Fremont to East San Jose will be the biggest public works project ever in Silicon Valley. (Gary Reyes/ Staff)

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (center) leads the ground breaking for the BART-to-San Jose extension near the future Berryessa station in San Jose, Calif. on Thursday, April 12, 2012. The 16-mile, $3.2 billion BART line from Fremont to East San Jose will be the biggest public works project ever in Silicon Valley. (Gary Reyes/ Staff)

Twelve years ago, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein got a call from a South Bay business leader she barely knew who wanted her to endorse a Santa Clara County transit tax to bring BART to San Jose.

Why, she asked Carl Guardino, head of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, should she as a San Francisco resident bother to get involved in a Santa Clara County issue? But Guardino wouldn’t take no for an answer.

“He twisted my arm so hard,” said Feinstein, who eventually came out in favor of the tax.

“The fact that Santa Clara County was willing to ante up is what made this move ahead.”

Those efforts came to fruition Thursday as a bevy of political and transportation leaders came together for the formal groundbreaking of the BART-to-San Jose extension.

Nearly 500 people attended a related luncheon in Santa Clara, and 450 were at the groundbreaking in East San Jose, near the future Berryessa station.

The $3.2 billion extension from Fremont to San Jose is the biggest public works project ever in Silicon Valley.

Guardino received plaudits from nearly every speaker for his work in getting the 2000 measure and a second tax in 2008 to pass by more than a two-thirds margin.

Without those measures, plus one approved by Alameda County voters, Thursday’s celebrations would never have happened.

A loud ovation at both events went to former Gov. Gray Davis, who in 2000 earmarked $760 million in state funds for the BART extension.

That was the first money set aside for the project.

Davis’ reasoning was simple.

“Silicon Valley is the undisputed capital of innovation in the country,” he said. “This is where big dreams happen.”

And this is a big dream. It was first conceived in the late 1950s but it wasn’t until the late ’90s that the dream seemed to have even a scant chance of being realized.

The final hurdle was cleared last month when the Federal Transit Administration approved $900 million. That completed the financial jigsaw needed to get work moving.

“On behalf of President (Barack) Obama and Transportation Secretary (Ray) LaHood, we were thrilled to deliver $900 million to Silicon Valley,” said Peter Rogoff, head of the Federal Transit Administration. “There were many near-death experiences but today it’s more a story of persistence. BART-to-San Jose never fell off our radar screen.”

Construction is already under way in Fremont, and later this year work will begin along the old Union Pacific tracks in Santa Clara County and at Mission Boulevard and Warren Avenue.

Some San Jose residents brought cameras, snapping photos of the speakers and of a BART train loaded on the back of a truck.

“This is finally happening,” said Tom Hayes, who lives near the future Berryessa station.

“Never thought I would see this day.”

Added Rep. Mike Honda: “We’ve been looking forward to this day for decades. Ray LaHood was so impressed that we were willing to dig into our own pockets instead of just having our hands out.”

Alameda County Supervisor Scott Haggerty pulled out notes from an Aug. 2, 1999, meeting with then-San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales to gauge sentiment for bringing BART to the South Bay.

The meeting started with the playing of Dionne Warwick’s “Do You Know the Way to San Jose?”

Gary Richards has covered traffic and transportation in the Bay Area as Mr. Roadshow since 1992. Prior to that he was an assistant sports editor at the paper from 1984-1987. He started his journalism career as a sports editor in Iowa in 1975.

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